Sunday, May 28, 2017

I have been writing this blog in one form or another since 2003. First it was Crimeman and then Hollywood Mafia, now Breakshot Blog. After hundreds of posts nothing much has changed, except that the guys are dying off and their world has grown smaller.

A few weeks ago I went to dinner with two friends, Andrew Didonato and Frank Calabrese Jr. We had a good time reminiscing about old days. We all have been away from the life for more than a decade. Some of our old friends are still in the life getting themselves in trouble. Some people never learn and the price they pay is high. The three of usl agree that life is much better now than when we were in the life. I have spoken to a number of guys who left the life and not one has said he made a mistake to leave it behind him.

This week, several events took place.

Battista (Benny) Geritano, a Gambino associate and part of a bank robbery crew, found himself in trouble yet again. He is already in prison for stabbing Nunzio Fusco in a Bayridge Brooklyn bar during a fight. He got off the hook previously when he stabbed a famous pizza maker on the street in Brooklyn.

He is now in Federal court because of threatening letters he sent from prison to commit extortion. He fired his court appointed lawyer and start asking everyone in the court what role they served in the court. The Judge ordered him to have a mental health exam.

The Gambinos have some other headlines this week. Two associates were charged in a large scale pain pill ring. Raymond Raimondi and Vincent Maniscalco and four others were charged with selling thousands of pills. They filled prescriptions all over Staten Island and Brooklyn, so they could resell the pills. They sold twenty five thousand dollars in pills to undercover NYPD Detectives in front of Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn.

Carmine Avellino is a Lucchese family capo, who along with his brothers helped murder two innocent men in 1994. Robert Kubecka and David Barstow, owners of an East Northport carting company, had helped the FBI investigate the mafia’s influence in waste hauling business and were shot to death in their office on Long Island.

Avellino plead guilty to a lesser charge that did not include the double murders and did seven years in prison.

He was back to his old tricks in 2010 when he worked with two cousins to put pressure on a man who owed a one hundred thousand dollar debt. He was arrested in 2014 and last week he was sentenced to one year of house arrest.

Avellino, now seventy one years old, suffers from poor health. Two heart attacks and Parkinson's are just a few of his many ailments.

You have to love these guys who are perfectly able to commit crimes, but then claim sickness so they can stay home.

That wraps up the world of the Mafia for May 2017.

I will be putting more of my writing efforts into other projects and blogs in the coming months, but I am sure the Mafia will still make headlines!

Sunday, May 21, 2017

The mafia never stops delivering a story. I often wonder what to write about, but every week I have a few fresh stories to choose from. This week is no different.

The FBI really screwed up their big mafia takedown that was all the news last summer. They arrested 46 people from various east coast families, all interconnected. They snared some big fish, like one time Philly Boss Joey Merlino and Genovese capo Pasquale (Patsy) Parrello. The FBI had some issues with their informant and at least two special agents working on the case. The majority of those picked up during the sweep have opted to take generous plea bargains offered by the US Attorney’s office.

Parrello is one of those who decided not to roll the dice and plea out this week. He copped to three counts of conspiracy to commit extortion for sending guys to collect his loanshark debts. He will face between five and six and a half years in federal prison. This deal is a far cry from the 60 years Parrello was facing for three racketeering counts he was charged with.

The FBI had a confidential human source who was close to Parrello and Merlino. He recorded hundreds of hours of tape, but they failed to debrief him properly and some other problems came to light. So rather than lose the case, they group was offered reduced charges.

Merlino, who has spent a lot of time in prison, has not bitten on the deal as of yet. Merlino was still on supervised release and did time for a violation while the FBI was making this case.

Parrello, a Genovese family capo and the owner of Pasquale's Rigoletto Restaurant on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, is no stranger to trouble. In 2001 Parrello was charged in a 98 count indictment of embezzling funds that totaled more than one million dollars from Local 11 and Local 964 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

He and some other Genovese used S&F Carpentry, a unionized company based in Tuckahoe, N.Y., To pay and use non union workers. They destroyed payroll records and threatened members of the union if they complained about non union workers on jobs.

He would end up doing a 7 year sentence for that case.

This case involved having his guys attack a panhandler who was bothering people outside his restaurant. Threatening debtors, running gambling and other assorted scams.

Most people would be happy with just owning Pasquale's Rigoletto Restaurant. The problem is, Parrello is no normal person, and I suspect if he lives till the end of this sentence it will not be the last we have heard of him.

For any of you who have not been to Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, it is worth the trip. It is the real Little Italy, unlike the three small blocks called that in Manhattan. Stop by Pasquale's Rigoletto Restaurant, they put out a great plate.

Bonanno Capo Vincent Asaro, known for his involvement in the famous Lufthansa airlines heist made famous in the movie Goodfellas, is a degenerate gambler who lost what little of the loot he got from the robbery.

Last year he beat the case the government brought against him for the robbery and murder.

He is now locked up on another case. This week the government claimed he wanted to have the federal prosecutor on his case murdered. The Feds do not want him released on bail because he reportedly told another defendant in this case, ‘we need to take care of this bitch,’ and not to ‘f**k it up like Vinnie.’ He was referring to Vincent Basciano, the boss of the Bonanno family who was taken down by the former boss of the family who recorded him while they were locked up together.